# Wobble of the pen

September 1, 2026 · pen-plotter, bookmaking, printmaking, art-making, creative-practice

Canonical: https://www.romellogoodman.com/writing/wobble-of-the-pen
Originally published: https://mellogood.substack.com/p/wobble-of-the-pen

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The translation of a piece of code into the physical world is where the art happens. There is too much grain in the world outside of my laptop and physical items don’t render with perfect fidelity. There are slight variations each time that a design is drawn; the pen wobbles and skips as it moves across the page, the ink pools and or runs dry. Tiny details that accumulate throughout the printing process.

This tiny book celebrates those tiny details. Each page is a crop of a larger pen plotter drawing chosen and assembled at random. A place to stop and focus only on the details. Each copy in this edition is hand sequenced, folded and bound; so no two copies have the same panels or order.

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Last year I bought a handheld scanner after watching a few instagram reels. I tried it out around Baltimore but eventually it ended up in my desk drawer. I was generally unhappy with the grain of the captures as I was expecting 1:1 translation but would be greeted with washed out colors and wavy distortions.

Then, while working on a commission for my in-laws, I found my usecase. I was plotting dozens of copies of the same radial piece and couldn’t stop looking at the differences in each piece. The baseline qualities distinct to each pen paired with the drawing processes incidental mistakes as the pen glides, skips, and stutters across the page.

My newest artist book, Wobble of the Pen, is about that difference. It is a small book about small details, measuring 4.25” × 3.67”. Each page is a crop of a larger pen plotter drawing. Using the scanner and a cropping program, I was able to zoom in and create dramatic moments of graininess. The wavy distortions that annoyed me a year ago become reinterpretations of my work by the scanner adding a glitch effect to each one. From there I shuffled the sequencing and bound of each copy by hand, so no two copies match. The book was found inside the drawings rather than made from them.

This book is also a new loop in my practice. The scanner turns my own archive into raw material from which I can make new work. Drawings I made years ago live on as inputs for future projects, translated through a different device and a differnt bookmaking process into something brand new.

Below are scans of the drawings and photos from the assembly process:

![](https://imagedelivery.net/BtaYDmQqPcGi8C3w4F2NuA/012a8241-488d-48ce-20b5-4314c6e7d600/public)

![](https://imagedelivery.net/BtaYDmQqPcGi8C3w4F2NuA/dc98ae7a-64cf-4f31-1cb9-172f7bb07900/public)

![](https://imagedelivery.net/BtaYDmQqPcGi8C3w4F2NuA/c73f379a-ee48-48ab-74e2-6ffad08e9d00/public)

![](https://imagedelivery.net/BtaYDmQqPcGi8C3w4F2NuA/c2b245ad-0b8c-4854-d261-0dfbe121a800/public)

![](https://imagedelivery.net/BtaYDmQqPcGi8C3w4F2NuA/01b779ed-fdb7-4186-43b5-06647c787a00/public)

-Mello